


What He Knows

by hiuythn



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 11:59:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11623053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiuythn/pseuds/hiuythn
Summary: Sometimes he thinks he should just do it. At times like this, where it’s just the two of them, and everything is warm and good, he thinks,what’s the harm?





	What He Knows

“Okay, what about this one: do you believe in mermaids or Atlantis?” Oikawa asks.

Iwaizumi takes the cherry pit out of his mouth with two fingers, drops them onto the pile they’ve amassed on the napkin sitting between them. He wipes his fingers absently on his shirt, which he’s been doing since they started eating. It still doesn’t make sense to Oikawa; why would he do that if he’s just going to keep eating and spitting the pits into his hands?

Oikawa doesn’t find it cute, he _doesn’t_.

Iwaizumi chews, once, twice. “Mermaids.”

Oikawa looks over at him, surprised. “Wait, really? You choose mermaids over The City of Atlantis?”

“I can hear the capitals in that,” Iwaizumi says, and his mouth twitches. He pinches the neck of his shirt and flaps it against the heat. There are red-pink fingerprints all over the front of it. Cool night air whispers through the open veranda door and he closes his eyes. “You choose the opposite, then?”

Oikawa props himself up on his elbow and the wind strikes cold against the sweat on his back and where it clings to his shirt. “Uh, yeah? There’s proof, dubious as it seems—like written documents about Atlantis and its tech and everything! Mermaids are just stories.”

“And here I thought you’d agree with me. Aren’t they just sea aliens, if you think about it?” Iwaizumi turns his head and smiles, just a tiny curve of his lips.

Oikawa scoffs to cover up the way the warm, happy _thing_ in his sternum that lights up because of that smile. “Don’t distract me with my love for space, Iwa-chan. Atlantis is real.”

“I never said it wasn’t,” Iwaizumi holds up his hands, completely relaxed, amusement just rolling off him in waves. Oikawa loves when he gets like this, likes it just a bit too much. “But if it’s real, if it’s sunk to the bottom of the sea, wouldn’t you say it’s totally possible that mermaids would inhabit it? What’s left of it, I mean.”

Oikawa sits up. “Why would anyone want to live in ruins? Doesn’t make any sense,” he says, affronted, and Iwaizumi laughs. “No, I’m serious! If mermaids are real, why would they leave their homes to live in a sunken city?”

Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow, teasing. “What makes you think mermaids existed before Atlantis fell? Maybe mermaids exist _because_ the city sunk.”

There are so many things in that sentence—in this whole conversation—that Oikawa wants to address but he doesn’t know where to start, and a frustrated noise rumbles in his throat. Iwaizumi presses his lips together but it’s a failing effort because he bursts out in peals of laughter three seconds later.

“Oikawa, your face!” he snickers. “You’re so mad! That made you so mad, I can’t believe this!”

“But you can believe in mermaids, apparently,” Oikawa mutters, red-cheeked. His eyes flick back and forth from the unrestrained glee on Iwaizumi’s face and a random point on the wall. Iwaizumi continues laughing himself into stitches and Oikawa huffs. He pops a cherry into his mouth and pushes Iwaizumi petulantly when he doesn’t seem to want to _stop_ laughing, but Oikawa can feel the affection creeping into him.

Seeing Iwaizumi so relaxed and willing to entertain his pointless questions is a rare thing, and Oikawa finds it hard not to smile. Finds it so hard not to let go just this once, to just push Iwaizumi those last few inches to the floor and press his cherry-stained lips to that neck, that jaw and that skin. He wants to show just how much he adores Iwaizumi, how much he wants to hold Iwaizumi in his hands and keep him safe. He wants Iwaizumi to know how much this all means to him.

Sometimes he thinks he should just do it. At times like this, where it’s just the two of them, and everything is warm and good, he thinks, _what’s the harm?_

But he knows better.

He knows how it’ll go, when Iwaizumi finds out Oikawa is in love with him; he thinks about it often. Thinks about: when it’ll happen

(after school, practice done and walking home together, sunset warm on their backs and Iwaizumi’s hair shining bronze)

where it’ll be

(on the street, at a corner, just blocks away from their homes)

what they’ll be wearing

(school uniforms, his untucked but Iwaizumi’s blatantly undone and flapping around his waist)

and why it finally comes out

(because Iwaizumi will be doing something dumb and endearing, like laughing so hard that he snorts or trying to show Oikawa how to eat bread and drink Coke at the same time, and Oikawa will relax too easily, show too much with his half-smile and warm eyes, he will let the love pour from his very being and it will be so clear that Iwaizumi will have no choice but to acknowledge it).

He thinks about it all.

He knows that when Iwaizumi finds out—and he will, he always does—when he finally _sees_ , he will look away.

He will rub a hand on the nape of his neck, he will close his eyes and sigh, a tiny sliver of breath. There will be silence and then: stilted words, gentle words but words that hurt, all the same, because Iwaizumi will not love Oikawa the same way. And although Oikawa already knows that, although Iwaizumi is kind with his words, they will still hurt.

He wonders if things will remain the same. He thinks that they won’t—they most definitely won’t. Oikawa knows: they won’t be able to put it past them, though they try. Perhaps it grows too hard for him to hide it, grows too obvious to Iwaizumi how much he overflows with what he feels, and slowly, they stop meeting each other’s eyes, stop high-fiving each other’s hands in victory, stop talking and stop grinning. They will stop.

Oikawa knows how it’ll go. Knows maybe only slightly better than he knows how to play volleyball with his eyes closed. Volleyball is in his synapses, in his blood, but what he and Iwaizumi are, was what he was born into. Seeing what they’ll be in the future comes easier than breathing to him. It scares him.

Scares him because after he’s thought everything through, logically and systematically, he asks himself how he’ll live after it’s all over. ~~~~

Because Iwaizumi will find out, and Oikawa will say

(yes, i’m sorry, hajime. forgive me.)

and Iwaizumi will leave him, won’t he?

And for all the things that Oikawa _does_ know, he will not understand how to live without Iwaizumi.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://hiuythn.tumblr.com)  
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/hiuythn) except i don't know how to use it
> 
>  
> 
> (if you are sad bc of the ending pls know i don't believe in a world where iwa and oik don't love each other)  
> kudos n comments are very appreciated ♡


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